


Cast a Spell Over the Leaves

by pxncey



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia, Pre-Captain America: The First Avenger, Trans Female Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-12
Updated: 2015-11-12
Packaged: 2018-05-06 06:06:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5405828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pxncey/pseuds/pxncey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve frowns so deeply that the furrow in his brow looks like it’s never going to leave. Bucky pokes it, and Steve remains frozen. He cannot quite comprehend what Bucky has just said. “Come again?”</p><p>Bucky blinks at Steve. “I’m a girl.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cast a Spell Over the Leaves

**Author's Note:**

> dedicated to my little sister, who's been prompting me to write more stucky for about a month. thanks for motivating me, mышка.

It’s always been something Bucky’s done, wearing lipgloss. It’s always been sort of, a _part_ of him. Steve watches him far too often, just doing everyday things, washing the dishes for his mom, shining his boots, and he just looks so introverted when he’s not wearing it (which is pretty rare, if Steve is honest). Everything about the way he moves and speaks changes. He becomes so much more… _down_ , and then all Steve wants is to lift him up again, and he can hardly believe that something as simple as goshdarn _lipgloss_ could do that.

He doesn’t bring it up with Bucky, not until a few years have gone by and he has been wearing it unfailingly every day. Steve tries a casual approach the first time, because he knows that Bucky will be faintly terrified no matter how he addresses the topic, and it will be better for the both of them if it goes wrong and they can just forget it, like it was some silly joke. “Where’d you manage to stock up on that much lippy, Buck?” Steve asks. A throwaway comment. Bucky takes it very deeply to heart. This is not a joking matter to him. “You’d think you’d have run out by now,” Steve says, obliviously worsening the situation.

“Guess not,” Bucky says tersely. A casual phrase expressed in the least casual way possible.

Steve tenses a little, aware that he’s stepped a foot wrong. He shifts in his seat on Bucky’s mom’s couch. Bucky holds his lemonade glass in his hand rigidly, and takes a sip, somehow even more rigidly.

“So, do you—” Steve tries.

Bucky interrupts almost immediately. His voice is quiet and strained. “Please. Can we not.”

“Right. Okay,” Steve agrees. He doesn’t bring it up for another few weeks—not until Bucky starts wearing mascara, and Steve starts finding pairs of ladies’ underwear in his dresser when he’s staying over.

Bucky is suitably horrified when Steve shows him the panties he found. “They’re not—I’m not a _pervert_ if that’s what you’re thinking,” Bucky says. “Christ, Stevie, I thought you knew me better.”

“What is it then?” Steve asks. He’s pretending he’s oblivious when really he knows what it is, and he’s just too ashamed to speak the words. He can’t possibly imagine how Bucky must feel.

The words Bucky eventually speaks after at least a minute of silence are probably the last thing Steve was expecting in the world. “I’m a girl, Steve.”

Steve frowns so deeply that the furrow in his brow looks like it’s never going to leave. Bucky pokes it, and Steve remains frozen. He cannot quite comprehend what Bucky has just said. “Come again?”

“I’m a girl,” Bucky insists. “I know I don’t look like one—”

Steve raises his eyebrows.

“—But I fucking swear to god almighty that I feel like one inside, Steve. Please. I’m not messing.”

Steve stares at Bucky, a little blankly, but still too intently for Bucky’s liking. Bucky stares at the baby-blue polka dot panties in Steve’s hand. Steve drops the panties a moment later, realising that they do not belong to some girl from down the docks, they belong to _Bucky_. Who bought them for _himself_. To _wear_. God almighty, this was weird.

Bucky presses the heels of his hands into his eyes, scrubbing at his face with his fingers. “I’m a fucking freak.”

“Hey, Buck, no. No. You’re not a goddamn freak. You’re just a normal kid.” Steve wants to tell Bucky that he believes him (her?), but he knows Bucky will think he is lying to spare his feelings. Once Bucky is convinced of something, it will take a whole lot of persuading to get him to change his mind, and Bucky is sure as sugar that he’s some sort of freak. Steve laments his friend’s stubbornness. Then again, it’s also one of the things he loves the most about Bucky. Well. Next to his lipgloss.

\----

Bucky is slowly becoming accustomed to the fact that Steve agrees with him _(her?)_ that he’s a girl. He starts to tell Steve things. His secret things. His favourite perfumes, that he sometimes stashes away samples of in the pockets of his slacks. Hairstyles he likes, that he wishes his hair was long enough to be styled into. His _name_ —his secret girl name that he thought of himself, that nobody else knows. But Steve isn’t _nobody_. Steve is _Steve_ , and Steve must know everything.

Joanna. Bucky wants to be called Joanna. Steve starts calling her _(him..?)_ by her chosen name immediately. In his head, at least. It isn’t until a while later that he uses it aloud, by mistake when the two of them are sipping lemonade (Bucky’s favourite) at the park. Steve expects Bucky to be mad that he uttered it in public. But Bucky just pulls him into a crushing hug, and when he steps away a long while later, his neck is damp, like Bucky had been crying.

Steve cries a bit that night, too. He doesn’t really know why. He knows it’s because of what’s happening to Bucky, but he doesn’t know why he’s the one that’s upset. He isn’t the one that has to put up with all the boys down at the docks calling him that dreaded f-word and throwing fuckin’ rocks at him.

Steve tends to just feel whatever Bucky’s feeling.

\----

As soon as Bucky (Joanna?) is old enough to leave home, she and Steve run away to live in New York. Steve had heard from a few guys down at the recruiting offices that things were better over there. Of course, that was before the officials heard that Steve was friends with _Barnes,_ the famous _homo_ , and kicked him out immediately, telling him that nowhere with a bloody scrap of conscience would accept his sort. Although Steve didn’t know what they had meant by ‘his sort’. Bucky wasn’t gay at all. She was just a woman. And over in New York, she really gets a chance to live as one.

Steve passes her off as his sister at first, but so many people comment on what a lovely couple they make that the two of them begin automatically introducing themselves as newlyweds to everyone. They don’t speak about the casual touches at first—Steve’s hand on Joanna’s shoulder in line at the grocery store, Steve’s fingers grazing her cheek when her hair (chin length and dark chocolate now) brushes over her eyes. But then it goes on. A hand on a shoulder turns into an arm around a waist. A brush of fingers suddenly turns into a lingering kiss under the oak trees in Central Park, with leaves spiralling around them like in one of those old romantic movies Joanna’s grandma loved.

Steve doesn’t question it when Joanna slides under the covers beside him one cold night. He continues to not question it when Joanna sleeps in his bed every night for the rest of their lives. And he _certainly_ does not question anything when Joanna mumbles “Marry me,” into the darkness of their bedroom just before he drops off to sleep, and he agrees emphatically, taking her in his arms and kissing her forehead.


End file.
